But I do not want to give Grampar another stroke, so I continue to go to church and to school prayers and take communion even though I don’t know how it fits together. It’s not something I can imagine talking to a vicar about, somehow.
With fairies it isn’t a matter of faith. They’re right there. They might not take any notice of you, but they’re right there where you can argue with them. And they know a lot about magic and how the world works, and they’re in favour of intervening in things. I could do some magic. I can think of all sorts of things that would be useful. I could make a better dream-ward. And I’d really like a karass.
Saturday 17th November 1979
Seven books waiting for me in the library. I wonder what happens if there are more than eight? The woman librarian was there today, and she let me fill my own interlibrary loan cards out. If I keep ordering fifty or so books a week, there may well be more than eight on any given Saturday. I wonder if I could get permission to go into town on a week night. Some girls go in for music lessons. Maybe I could start learning an instrument so I could go to the library, though as I am so pathetic at music it might not work. I wonder if there’s any other kind of extracurricular thing they’d let me in for. I could ask Miss Carroll.
I didn’t have any money, but I went down by the bookshop anyway. I’ve discovered the wood across from it is called Poacher’s Wood—it’s on the map—and I went in there to burn the letter I got yesterday. I went a way in, and made a circle. Nobody saw me except a couple of indifferent fairies. I didn’t read the letter either. I didn’t even open it. Because it was only one, and solid like that, I didn’t make a fire, I just set fire to the bottom corner and dropped it. I nearly burned my hair when it caught more quickly than I’d expected, so I won’t try that again.
It was cold but not raining, the first time I’d been outside without it being rainy for ages. I tried sitting on the bench where I read Triton to read Born With the Dead but the wind was too cold. I don’t mind the cold all that much, what I do mind is the way the days are so short. It was getting dark before it was time to go back to school.
I looked around the bookshop and saw some things I want to buy when I have some money again, or if not, order from the library. There’s an adult book by Alan Garner called Red Shift. I wonder what it’s about? It has a weird cover with a standing stone and a light, which doesn’t mean anything. If I tell Daniel I want to buy it, he’ll probably send me some more money, unless that ten pounds was supposed to last me until Christmas. Well, if I tell him I want it and it was supposed to, then he can say that, and I can just order it.
Afterwards, because it was dark but I didn’t want to go back, and I didn’t have money to sit in a cafe pretending to drink tea, I looked around the other shops in town. I went into Woolworths where I pinched a bottle of talc and a Twix. There was a girl called Carrie in the Home who pinched things all the time, and she showed me how to do it. It’s quite easy as long as you keep calm. Nobody pays any attention to me. I wouldn’t take a book though, or rather, I would from Woolworths, if they had any, but I wouldn’t from a bookshop, not unless I was desperate.
I went into C&A and looked at bras. I didn’t try any on. They’re more expensive than I would have thought, and the sizing is very complicated. Auntie Teg would know about them.
In Smiths I saw Gill looking at records. I don’t care about records at all, in fact I associate being interested in pop music with the stuff she was talking about despising, trying to get boys interested in you. But I went to say hello. She was looking at a record called Anarchy in the U.K. by a group called the Sex Pistols. It was a very ugly cover, but I am quite interested in anarchism because of The Dispossessed. I think it would be much fairer to live on Anarres. Gill said we wouldn’t like it because our parents wouldn’t have money and we wouldn’t have advantages. I said everyone would have the same advantages. I didn’t say my family weren’t as rich as everyone else’s anyway. I said why should we have a better education than someone who can’t afford Arlinghurst?
Gill bought the record, though she’s not going to be able to play it until Christmas so I don’t see the point.
On the way back, we talked about Leonardo. Apparently, as well as painting the Mona Lisa, he was a scientist and invented helicopters and studied fossils and kept a notebook. Gill has a book of lives of scientists which she offered to lend me, which is kind of her, though it isn’t at all my thing. She’s a bit—I don’t know. She’s not stupid, which is refreshing, and she’s not afraid to talk to me, but she seems a bit over-eager somehow, which is off-putting. I get the feeling she wants something.
I shared the Twix with Deirdre. I didn’t tell her I pinched it.
Sunday 18th November 1979
I wrote to Grampar. When I next have some money I’ll buy him a get well card. I told him about my marks (boringly top in everything except maths as usual) and about the weather. I wrote to Daniel, mostly about Imperial Earth and The Shockwave Rider, but mentioning the Garner. I wish he’d give me pocket money like most of the girls get, and then I’d know how much I was going to get. I also wrote to Auntie Teg about the bra problem, very carefully not asking for money, in fact saying specifically not to send any, because that wouldn’t be fair, just wanting to know how the sizing works. There’s a number and a letter. I suppose I could ask Deirdre, or even Gill, but I’d rather not.
No buns today.
Tuesday 20th November 1979
Parcel from Daniel this morning, with Clifford Simak’s City and Frank Herbert’s Dune, neither of which look all that immediately appealing. It’s so great having plenty to read. Also, another ten pounds. I don’t know, if he’s going to send me ten pounds every time I mention wanting to buy a book I suppose it’s good, but it’s very unreliable. I talked to Deirdre about this, though it was hard to get her to open up, as money, and pocket money, is one of those taboo subjects which you’re supposed to talk about in oblique ways. But when she did start to talk, I could hardly shut her up.
“I get two pounds whenever we come back here. My mother says I don’t need any money because it’s all provided, but that’s daft. I know you’ve noticed I’m always borrowing your soap. There’s soap and shampoo and all that, and if you want anything at all at the tuck shop, even an apple. And if you don’t buy buns ever, everyone says you’re mean, or worse, knows you’re poor and patronizes you. Karen bought me a bun last term and said ‘I know you won’t be able to pay me back, but don’t worry about that at all’ in such a smarmy way. So I bought buns the first week after half term.”
I had noticed, because she bought me one too. “You don’t have to buy me a bun back, really,” I said. “Though of course it’s nice to have one.”
“Most of the girls have a pound every week, or even two pounds, some of them. I don’t know how they’ll manage if they ever really do change the pound notes to coins, because they send it in letters. Nobody talks about exactly how much they get, because it’s vulgar to mention specifics about money.”
Vulgar to mention specifics about money, but what kind of car your father has and what job he has and what kind of house and what kind of fur coat your mother has are common topics of conversation. I didn’t even know there were different kinds, let alone which are good. The first time they asked me I said fox, just at random, which seems to be plausible, though Josie asked me if I meant silver fox or just plain red fox. It was so obvious from the framing of her question that silver fox was good that I didn’t hesitate. Of course, my mother doesn’t have a fur coat at all, and if she did she’d probably torture the poor thing. Anyway, I think fur is wrong, and I said so. I said I’m never going to have a fur coat, not ever, because it’s wrong to kill animals just for the fur. I’m not a vegetarian, I think it’s all right to kill animals to eat them, because that’s different. They’d do that to us. There’s no need for us to take their fur just to show off.